{"id":600804,"date":"2026-07-23T19:47:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/600804\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T19:47:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:47:30","slug":"the-brightening-air-review-kate-gilmore-gives-a-standout-performance-in-conor-mcphersons-play-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/600804\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brightening Air review: Kate Gilmore gives a standout performance in Conor McPherson\u2019s play \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brightening AirGate Theatre, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n

This new play by Conor McPherson<\/a>, who also directs, opens with an evocative riff on train stations. As she prepares a tea for a family reunion, Kate Gilmore\u2019s<\/a> neurodivergent tomboy Billie insists that Limerick Junction is like a \u201cmagic door\u201d. As there\u2019s no town there, it\u2019s a place of pure transition that holds out the possibility of travelling onwards as far afield as Istanbul and even India.<\/p>\n

That reverie signals that neither Billie, who requires constant minding, nor the other characters are going anywhere fast. Even Limerick Junction seems a distant prospect, as The Brightening Air, which comes to the Gate from the Old Vic, in London, is set in the vicinity of Sligo in the early 1980s. And what ultimately drives Billie and her brother Stephen (Brian Gleeson<\/a>) is not a desire for escape but a determination to hold on to the rundown farmhouse they inherited from their parents.<\/p>\n

Their elder brother, Dermot (Chris O\u2019Dowd<\/a>), soon arrives to pressure them to sell up. Much like Finbar in McPherson\u2019s breakout play, The Weir<\/a>, he is a legend in his own lunchtime with minor accomplishments in business.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Playwright Conor McPherson: \u2018You\u2019re better off getting hammered than a three-star review\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But his boastful hectoring belies a midlife crisis that has led him to ditch his wife, Lydia (Judith Roddy<\/a>), for a 19-year-old waitress, Freya (Aisling Kearns). <\/p>\n

One of the play\u2019s more unsettling moments sees Dermot tell the story of a topsy-turvy trip to London to obtain an abortion. Freya\u2019s own perspective is never heard. Both striking out on your own and remaining confined to the family farm end up seeming like equally dismal trajectories here.<\/p>\n

Also trying to force a sale is the siblings\u2019 uncle, Fr Pierre (Se\u00e1n McGinley<\/a>), an ostensibly half-blind and senile priest who has been defrocked for resuscitating the Gnostic heresy that the world was created by the Devil. <\/p>\n

He is accompanied by a housekeeper, Elizabeth (Derbhle Crotty<\/a>), whose devoted service initially seems to stem from illicit love. But, like Stephen and Billie, she transpires to be simply gripped by inertia. Peter Corboy\u2019s Brendan, a tongue-tied farm boy nursing a passion for Billie, completes the cast.<\/p>\n

The action itself unfolds rather circuitously until a twist after the interval prompts a shift in the familial balance of power. Fr Pierre undergoes a remarkable transformation while Dermot cuts a depleted figure. Though she finds herself outmanoeuvred, Billie becomes an increasingly forceful and lucid presence, capping a dynamic, standout performance by Gilmore.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Brightening Air: Judith Roddy, Kate Gilmore, Peter Corboy, Derbhle Crotty, Se\u00e1n McGinley, Brian Gleeson, Aisling Kearns and Chris O’Dowd. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni \"TheThe Brightening Air: Chris O’Dowd, Peter Corboy and Brian Gleeson. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni \"TheThe Brightening Air: Judith Roddy and Brian Gleeson. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni <\/p>\n

The play nonetheless lacks some of the dramatic sinew that characterises McPherson\u2019s earlier work, where the offbeat small talk is balanced by more focused, emotionally charged monologues. Echoing The Weir and Shining City, the supernatural lurks throughout The Brightening Air. But the nods to the Devil, as well as magic spring water, never coalesce into a genuinely haunting spectacle over the course of two and a half hours (with an interval).<\/p>\n

There is also so much going on in the many-sided, frequently wacky exchanges between the characters that it becomes difficult to keep track of the intricacies of the dialogue. Such verbal intensity requires a little more room to breathe on stage.<\/p>\n

The Brightening Air is at the Gate Theatre<\/a>, Dublin, until Sunday, August 30th<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Brightening Air: Chris O’Dowd and Judith Roddy. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni \"TheThe Brightening Air: Chris O’Dowd, Kate Gilmore and Brian Gleeson. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni \"TheThe Brightening Air: Derbhle Crotty. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brightening AirGate Theatre, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 This new play by Conor McPherson, who also directs, opens with an evocative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[111557,198130,36070,242939,18,117,43856,19,17,242942,242941,242940,153160],"class_list":["post-600804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-brian-gleeson","tag-chris-o-dowd","tag-conor-mcpherson","tag-derbhle-crotty","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-gate-theatre","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-judith-roddy","tag-kate-gilmore","tag-peter-corboy","tag-sean-mcginley"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116971022711131942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}